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Batman and Robin #13Grant Morrison’s Batman and Robin is a Batman book of two worlds. The first exists in Morrison’s mind, the world where the wildest and craziest ideas push the limits of fiction and storytelling. The second is Batman’s established home, the world of Gotham City and the Dark Knight, built up with over 70 years of tales. Morrison’s continuing Batman story begins to escalate even further, culminating of a second possible death of a Batman.

Morrison’s writing continues to be hit or miss. It’s almost as if he writes one or two issues of quality storytelling to draw the readers in and then hits them with a concentrated mess of Morrison gobbily gook. This issue certainly falls in the latter category. In one issue, the reader is treated to pages of Morrison’s Batman piecing together nonexistent clues solving a mystery of a character introduced only a few issues prior. Then, the reader gets another batch of Batman expositing that a disaster averted in the first issues was actually part an even more devious plot which happens to be set into motion at the end of the issue. It’s deliberately heavy-handed story telling that harkens back to the Silver Age. On the plus side, Morrison continues to endear Damien Wayne, current Robin and Batman of the future. Over the last several months, the Batbooks in general have made him a likable little shit, obnoxious yet enjoyable to read. This book proves no exception.

Frazer Irving’s art continues to disappoint in high profile books. His oversimplified style of art doesn’t mesh well with the high-tech, spastic Morrison Batman book. Between the lack of backgrounds in most of his panels to the additions of wrinkle lines on the face of every character in the book, it simply fails to deliver a needed punch.

Hopefully, with Morrison’s standard exposition dump now out of the way, he can focus more on delivering a quality story instead of exploring how far he can push the envelope with a high-profile book.

Batman and Robin #13 is what a comic book should be. Frazer Irving knocked it out of the park on art. His Joker sent chills up my spine. Grant really seems to be reaching the Climax of this storyline he's been working on since his first issue of Batman. The scene between Joker and Damien was worth $2.99 alone.